The Internet has, in a decade, evolved into what is now the largest and most used digital network in existence. The Internet is a connection of computers using the TCP/IP protocol, using the so-called “World Wide Web” as a cognitive user interface to the Internet based on metaphors like “site”, “page” and “link”. The World Wide Web became something everyone could use largely because both utility and usability was provided by representing the Internet as two-dimensional graphical abstractions of linked pages. This paradigm efficiently explained the concept of Internet by using analogs that most people can understand.
The Internet continues to evolve further and could eventually also include a “physical internet” consisting of not only computers, but devices, other objects and environments with embedded data-, computation-, sensor-, location-, and communication-interaction capabilities. This potential evolution is often referred to using terminology such as “The Internet of Things”, “Machine to Machine Communications”, “Ubiquitous Computing”, “Pervasive Computing” or “Ambient Intelligence”. It has been estimated that every person is surrounded by somewhere between 1000 and 5000 intelligent objects and a global Internet of Things may in a few years consist of 50 to 100,000 billion objects whose location and status will have to be continuously monitored or updated. While the concept of such an Internet of Things may seem simple, its implementation will be far more difficult.
For example, many of today's products which link or connect networked devices are ad-hoc solutions that enable specific limited functionalities or services. Examples include file sharing and remote access software that runs on a device or computer and enables remote control and/or makes data or service accessible within a WAN, (W)LAN and/or PAN. Examples of such products include Salling Clicker, Simplify Media, Apple's Airtunes and iTunes Remote for the iPhone, etc. Another category of relevant products includes devices that collect and transmit data, such as products like the wireless pedometer “Nike+Apple” that measure parameters associated with a person's running, and Botanicalls, which is a sensor that communicates the level of humidity of the soil in a flowerpot to the web.
However, none of today's solutions for networked object interconnectivity provide holistic and unified interaction with a plurality of networked objects, environments, media and/or services based on the interrelations between them. Consequently there is no solution today that provides an intuitive way of understanding the contexts, relationships, ownership, compatibility, history, metadata, status, and dependencies of large numbers of objects that also may or may not be physically present. In addition there is no solution today that successfully supports the users' weak conceptual understanding of digital networks as such, i.e. the mental model of possible interactions and simultaneous interconnectivities within a digital network consisting of numerous devices and/or services.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide systems, methods, devices and software associated with the management and interconnectivity of networked objects which overcomes the afore-described challenges by addressing, among other things, ownership association, policy control, software and service management, error handling and maintenance of such networked objects.